Hi All,
I thought you might be interested to know that I have published a book on an unusual race track in the goldfields of Western Australia near Kalgoorlie where Australasian land speed records for cars and motorcycles were set from 1914 to 1939 - long before Lake Gairdner! The West Aussies who head to Lake Gairdner every year will know all about it already. The place is called Lake Perkolilli and if you haven't been you should take a look some time. It is a rock-hard claypan which had a two mile natural dirt track. It was developed in 1914 and it still exists today but as it is a two mile circle it has not been used for record breaking for a long time. For 20 years, I have been researching the history of the track. The book, “Red Dust Racers” documents the stories of early motorsport in WA and the glory days at the legendary track. It covers motor car and motorcycle racing, the early years of the bicycle in WA and even the Perth to Perkolilli air race. West Australians tended to favour large capacity American cars at the claypan but they had to make do with what they had. So there were no Millers but lots of Chryslers, Studebakers, several Auburns and Essexes and of course the Ford Ts, As and V8s. They had stock car races, taxi races and many all comers races with cars specially built for the events. Many Australasian 24 hour speed records (notably by a Chrysler, Studebaker and Terraplane) were set on the claypan. Many motorcycle "flying quarter mile" records were set, too. It’s a big book: coffee table format, hardcover, gilt edged with 488 pages and 1200 photographs, many in colour. Only 1000 copies have been printed and every copy is individually numbered. You can find out more about Red Dust Racers at http://www.motoringpast.com.au. I have pictures of Perko at https://motoringpast.wordpress.com.

Thanks Lynchy! Three DLRA members put in orders for the book today. Great stuff! I think it will open a few people's eyes on the other side of the Nullarbor about what we get up to over here! DLRA regulars Team Shep and the E-Type are in the book. They visited Perkolli after it was rained out at Lake Gairdner the first time they went. We all ended up driving from Perth to Ceduna for fish and chips and then drove all the way back to WA and had a rendezvous at Perko. Good times.